The Defenestration
by Infernezor
Summary: A brief moment of Naruto's life and thoughts before the close. One-shot.


**A/N: **I had an idea for a one shot and decided to write it down. I don't expect much out of it.

**The Defenestration**

Naruto walked down the street, alone. Of course he was alone. No one could bear to stand near him. The market men and women glared at him as he passed, making his way home, making his way to sanctuary. The civilians would whisper to each other as he passed, thinking he couldn't hear them. He could hear their muttered whisperings all around him. They whispered about how it was his fault that so many were dead. It wasn't his fault, despite what they said. It wasn't his fault people that people were dead. They were foolish. They knew nothing. It wasn't his fault. _It wasn't his fault._ No matter how many times he would repeat the phrase in his head it would always sounded out hollow.

A figure detached itself from the alleyway just ahead of him. A grey haired, pallid man in his mid-thirties, dressed in subdued colors of brown and green. Ninja garb. His hair was well kempt and professional and he walked with a self-assured air towards Naruto, knife held ready. Naruto didn't pay him any attention; he was lost in his own thoughts. As the man neared Naruto, the ninja began to sweat. When he was almost within striking distance, the ninja fell, face first into the ground.

Naruto stepped over the corpse with a casual grace, honed through practice. Never once Naruto look down at the corpse, the faces were always the same. Their faces spoke, silent accusations that it was his fault that they were dead. The whisperings increased. The merchants were closing shop now. The police force would be by soon to collect the body for study. The effects of his chakra were always of great interest to the research corps. The research corps was the only place that welcomed him back, them and all of their gauges and their knives.

One last art merchant threw him a glare as he closed his stall and moved his easel. He, no doubt, had aspirations of becoming famous with his draws, hoping to make it into history, and Naruto had interrupted him. Naruto wished he could understand what the humans saw in their colors and their lines. They spent so much time perfecting them, honing them, for what? They held no use or value. They wouldn't stop the end of a weapon. The lines offered no comfort to the dull hunger in his belly. The colors didn't care if he was cold at night. The canvas offered no company.

Naruto remembered when he was younger, when he cared what the humans thought and valued. When he was younger, he snuck into the art museum in Konoha to see an exhibition of old prints that everyone had been raving about, talking about the symbolism, the meaning, the beauty. And there was so much emotion in their voices, emotion that he had never felt.

He wanted to feel it.

So after it was dark, he snuck inside and looked at the scrolls. He hoped to feel something that would connect him to them. Something, anything, to fill the ever growing void within his chest.

Nothing. He spent all night looking at those scrolls- at a thousand years' worth of work, of poems about love, and honor, and duty, and sacrifice- and all he felt was disgust at how much effort had been wasted on creating something of no practical value, something that was worthless when it came to survival. Naruto remembered tearing them from the walls and stamping them to pieces beneath his feet, a thousand years of effort down the drain.

'And that's when I realized that I will never see a sunset as something beautiful, and not as another day I might die. I will never look at a kunai and admire the shine of sunlight on metal, and not the way it can open up a man's throat. I will never appreciate Icha Icha Paradise as entertainment, and not a mechanism to preserve my sanity. I will never be able to appreciate beauty, or honor, or anything that doesn't relate to food, shelter, safety.' Naruto thought, doing his best to ignore the increased whispers from around him. They apparently knew something was going to happen. Something in the natural order had changed. Naruto didn't care. They were 'other' and therefore, what they held as valuable wasn't the same as his own values. Naruto spared them a glace, despite himself.

'I look at them, and they walk like me, they talk like me, they breathe like me-' Naruto dug his fingers into his sides, 'but they're not me-'

He let out an angry breath. The merchants increased their pace. '-and I'm not them! And I hate them for it, because every goddamn time I look at them, something in me knows that-

That no matter how hard I try, that no matter how long I try to be like them, no matter that I look and talk and breathe like them, I can't feel like them. That I'm going to spend the rest of my life, whenever I look at them, listening to the voice that tells me: you will never be able to feel what they feel, you-'

'-animal.'

It was what they thought of him, labeled him as, and yelled at him. It didn't matter. They didn't matter. They were 'other'. It wasn't his fault.

Naruto opened a small gate and entered, beginning his way up the dusty and unkempt path to the small, derelict building that he currently called home. The small plot of land that he inhabited held no comfort for him anymore. Others had taken that away from him long ago.

Patriotism they called it. Home they named it, full of familiar smells. Foolishness Naruto saw it. An honor it would be to be trained as a ninja. To become one of the many who fought to protect Konoha from her enemies, whoever it may be. Home would be proud to know you. Their definition of home wasn't what he imagined it should be. Home was a place where one felt accepted, loved, appreciated for all that they were and all that they could be. Home had never been a place-

Naruto failed to see the point of dying for an intangible ideal. Possibilities, patriotism-

'_these things mean nothing me'_

When home held no value, there was no reason to die for a set of traditions and a plot of earth that didn't hold anyone worth protecting. It wasn't his fault.

Naruto turned the key and entered his apartment. After entering, Naruto began to climb the aged stairs. It had been years since anyone but him lived here.

The stairs reminded him of the Hokage. The pliant wood, the way the Hokage would tousle his hair. The creaky sound the boards made, the Hokage standing up. The musty smell of the dusty stairs, the Hokage's pipe as he relaxed in his office. They reminded him of the old man who once came to see him when he was younger. Before he matured and the fox's chakra surged. That was when Naruto's presence wasn't a danger to his well-being. The sheer force of his chakra drained others of life if they got to close. It took similar powers to survive for extended periods of time in his presence.

Naruto entered his room, barren of possessions with only one window to let in the light, barren of life. Naruto felt the presence behind him as the door closed. They could bear to be near him. Naruto felt a hand grip his shoulder. Touch? That was a new one. He hadn't felt a caress in so long. Maybe the Hokage had come to hug him one more time? Maybe he had found a way to make him human again. Maybe he could feel something. Maybe, now, he could love like them. That he could be human. It wasn't his fault.

The hand gripped tighter causing Naruto to cry out in pain. Another hand snatched his pants and then the hands worked together to throw him. With a crash the hands had defenestrated him. The window's glass scattered around him. It wasn't their fault.

I felt oddly calm as he fell through the sky. There was a certain serenity to be found as I plummeted towards the ground, a crystalline moment where everything came together and made sense. Pulling the Icha Ichia book from my back pocket, I gazed at it. The pages yellow and the orange color faded from age, a familiar sight. I gazed lovingly at the front cover's picture, a man chasing after a woman. It was a common theme throughout the book. A man chasing something he couldn't have. How I loved that book. My Godfather wrote it, you know. A godfather he only met once, just a few moments ago in fact. I held the book close to my chest, close to my heart, as I fell. My eyes gently closing as the wind blew my hair around my face.

"I will never be like them, will I?" I asked of the sky, my voice, deadened acceptance.

Naruto swallowed back tears and answered himself as honestly as he could.

"No."

The ground gave him the first hug he'd had in a long time. It was warm. It was comfortable. It was home. It was his fault.

**End of story.**


End file.
